"I WILL" Olympics 2012

Excuse the mess on the table. =)

While I admit that I did not get to decorate and do as much as my mind had wanted to.. it sure was a fun idea!!  Tomorrow will be our "Medal Ceremony" and each child will be getting there little Gold medals.   However, today I wanted to post the photos of the room as well as ramble on about what we did all month. 

In addition to the photo above is the another angle of the smaller room that we use for snack and sometime lesson and fine motor activities. 

My darling husband next to the Olympic ring wall.

Our Leader Board

 I admit there is much missing here.. I never got around to adding the scripture "...I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded..." 1 Nephi 3:7 to that blank space above the leader board. Oops! The leader board has each nursery child's name and a column for the "event" aka lesson.  After each lesson a corresponding smiley face sticker was placed.  I was very conflicted about marking everyone's or just the ones that were there...as you can see I ended up marking everyone.  The half circles on the left listed the event/lesson by it's corresponding color. I hope that made sense.
The lessons were  I Will Be.. thankful, say "I'm Sorry," Share, Love Others and Obey.  They are in the "Behold Your Little Ones" manual that is used for the nursery class.

My son's addition to the decorations; olympians.

 Normally when I decorate the nursery, my children are in school but it's summer break. Peter-Leo (my son) wanted to help so I tasked him to make the olympic rings out of tissue paper.  He tried cutting and cutting and the shape was never right. But he kept getting the shape you see to the left of the bathroom door.  He said it looked like people and he wanted to make them olympians.  It was a great idea.
Our normally undecorated shoe/paper holder was decorated with shoes cut outs that I purchased at our local dollar store that had each child's name written on them. I thought it went with the theme nicely!

The main/larger room was pretty simple. I added the Olympic rings (which should of had the scripture quote underneath it as well... but I just ran out of time. sorry.)  And of course the same balloon and stars hanging from the ceiling as the smaller room. While the smaller room's chalkboard had a leader board, this room's chalkboard was decorated with those medal winner blocks. 

You may notice the small baggie on the upper left hand side of the poster, it is filled with gold paper circles with each child's name written on it.  These gold medals/name tags have velcro on the back and attach to a poster (attached to the back of the door to the left of the chalkboard) decorated with the Olypmic Rings.  The purpose is to have them attach their medal to the Olympic Rings as a "Check in." Most of the little ones like doing it.  Later we move those medals to the Helper Chart.  

Again Olympic Rings on the wall in the main room.  That long rectangle white blur on the left side of the cabinets is the "Helper's Chart" when we attach the medals of those that are there that day to simple tasks/jobs like Cup Carrier,Snack Carrier, Music Helper,  Rug Person, Opening Prayer, etc. 

I know that children have really enjoyed the new decorations and the theme.  I know tomorrow they will love getting their little gold medals! I will try to take a couple photos and post them.   

many wows and woes,
Michelle

Olympic Fever is HERE!!

 At the end of June while my kids and I were watching the Summer Olympic trials.. it came to me! "I Will" Olympics! That was my brilliant theme!  So I began by pulling lessons from the manaul that fit. This month in the nursery we are focusing on five of the "I Will.." lessons from the manual. I am using the primary song "Nephi's Courage" as kind of our theme song.

"I will go and I will do the things the Lord commands.." and it's corresponding scripture.

Sadly, it has taken me about half the month to decorate the nursery, and honestly there is more I wanted to do.. but I got sick and classes started so time ran out! I started by making olympic rings, hanging balloons and stars from the ceiling to give a fun feeling.  Plus, when we have a crabby kid we can usually lift them up and they love to hit the balloons or stars.. it is a great distractor! Next I cut out the letters from tissue paper for I WILL! and used liquard starch to adhere it to the walls. WARNING: TEST EACH COLOR to make sure it does not bleed onto the wall. The blue tissue paper did this to me and thankfully a magic eraser made it go away, but your walls maybe be different. ALWAYS TEST! 

Since our nursery is two rooms (with a door between them) we use one room as a snack, playdough, lesson and Child Pick up room and the bigger room for playing, welcome and closing circle, singing time, and such.   Because it is two different rooms we have two chalkboards. For this theme I made one chalkboard a "Leader Board" and the other one the winner podiums.  See photos next week.

Running a tighter nursery ship than most..

I have a firm belief that if you structure a nursery program so that generally things flow the same week after week... that consistancy will give comfort to young children.  It is quite simple...even as an adult I feel..if I know what is coming next I am not afraid.  Often I tell parents of newbies (those 18 months old nearly toddlers) that for the first 18 months of their precious lives they haven't been able to leave your side, and ALL of a sudden you want to drop them off at the door with someone they don't know, in a strange room with a bunch of kids...really? Does that not scare you? That scares most small children! Thankfully most adjust quickly some don't.However, having a schedule, format, or structure in place does help them. 

Personal example: a sweetie little girl, new to the ward and our nursery, 2.5 years old came to the nursery. She did not want to be there, her parents told me "she has always had problems coming." 
My solution, I bent down and spoke to the child. "My friends and I would really like for you to come and play for a bit, if you would come and play I promise to take you to your parents if you like. Can you try that?"  Very relucantly she did.  I stayed by her side and tried to get her to play with other children. Honestly, she didn't play with anyone. After play time in our schedule we have Opening Circle followed by snack...so I asked her "Free play is over, we are going to sing a couple songs, say prayer and have a snack would you like to stay for that?" She said no.  I took her to her parents.
Her parents were very confused... "why did you bring her to us was she crying too much?"   No, she wasn't crying, but I made a promise. I do my best to keep my promises.  I explained that to them and said next week we will try again and for longer.  Within a month, this little girl was seen running to nursery instead of from it.  For her the key was baby steps and being asked if she wanted to stay for the next activity. She stayed for free play, then free play and snack, then free play, snack, and music, and so on.  She learned what we did, she knew what would happen next. Most importantly she knew she could be taken to her parents if she asked.  She began to trust.

Does this work for every child? No. My only suggestion is work with the parents and the other leader (if you have one) and figure out what works best for the child. 

Here is my schedule that I have used.
10:10-10:30 Free Play
Each week I set out free play toys, little people, cars and a twirly track, giant building blocks.  Generally these types of toys are only bought our during free play.
10:30-10:35 Welcome/Opening Circle
Here we sing a couple simple songs (Popcorn popping Once there was a snowman) we always end with Roll your Hands and have them keep their arms folded for prayer/blessing on the snack.
10:35-10:55 Snack and Clean Up
We have snack at the table, we use hand sanitizer, and serve snack with sippy cups of water.  During snack time one of us will call out "roll"  We will ask "Is Joe here? (pretend to look around trying to find him) Does anyone know where Joe is?"  Most children will point to them if they are new, we just wave to Joe and say "Hello Joe! It is so good to see you today." One other thing... we do teach/ask/help each child (even the 18 month olds) to throw away there snack bowl (coffee filter) and put their sippy cup in the tray before the go to free music time.
10:55-11:10 Music & Movement
There will always be those who eat their snack fast or just aren't interested... so we put out either ribbon rings or egg shakers out and dancing/movement music for them to do while others finish snack. Once everyone is finished with snack, we do either singing songs (the action/moving songs or songs like 5 Green and Speckled Frogs, Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam, ect.) or Moving To Music on the Primary 1 Manual CD (it's the orange lesson book that used to be used as the nursery manual..I believe they use for sunbeams.)
11:10-11:30 Lesson & Nursery Scriptures
We have the lesson and usually an activity to go with it.  Right now I have so many juniors I don't do the Nursery Scriptures.  Once I have a greater number of seniors I will try marking them. Nursery Scriptures were made by pulling one scripture from each lesson, making a "book" and having them use a sticker to "mark" it.  Sometimes the lesson is short and a coloring in page or an activity that I think teaches the concept better. 
11:30-11:45 Fine Motor Activity
This is generally more play time but I chose toys/activities that promote fine motor skills such as shaving cream smoosh and scribble, playdough or blocks (like the toddler legos ones.) 
11:45-11:55 Books & Babies
Settling down, we bring out the babydolls and stuffed animals along with the books.  We invite the children to find a baby, pick a book and tell the baby about the pictures in the book. We sit down with them and read the book and just interact with them. 
11:55-noon Closing Circle and Bubbles (honestly we usually open the pick up door later than that.)
We gather together, remind the children about the lesson (example "remember today we talked about sharing and how Jesus showed us how to share so let's SHARE!) We have closing prayer and then it is bubble time!

One thing... I am asked why the schedule and why so harsh? It isn't harsh, are there times when we have free play for longer, music longer or honestly just skip the lesson? YES! "The schedule is to be used a guide but the children behavior (tried, super active, ect.) generally decide how things go.  If they are extra bouncy then we play longer...if they are enjoying the lesson activity we let them go a bit longer."

 I think that is a good start!  If you have any questions leave a comment or email me!

Michelle